BOSTON — This is the 21st century, and there are things like Twitter and GIFs, so the chatter in the aftermath of the Bruins' 4-2 win over the Canadiens on Saturday night in Game 5 of their second-round series was dominated by water bottles, squirting and muscle flexing.

Did Shawn Thornton squeeze his green bottle and excise some fluid on a bypassing Subban? Yeah, sure. Did Milan Lucic put on a Lou Ferrigno show? Yep. Did either matter in the game? As surely as two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen bond together to form water, the answer would be no.

“I don’t want to take away anything from their team,” Subban said in his post-game comments, in which he admitted not liking the squirt but more or less downplayed it. “They played well today, they executed. We have to be better. Now it’s do or die for us going back home. We have played well in our barn all year and in this playoffs, so we have to execute.”

Subban hit the nail on the head. The Bruins took a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven with their most dominant game of the series, a game so unlike all the others. Whereas the Bruins' previous wins came at the end, with late rallies and overtime heroics, this was very Bruin-y hockey from the beginning.

They smashed. They rolled four lines. They possessed the puck. It was just 1-0 on a Carl Soderberg goal with the shots at 9-8 Habs after the first, but it felt like it could have been 4-0, Boston. This was the Bruins' best start to a game since Game 1, and they didn't let an avalanche of penalties — eight in the first period alone, four on each side — get them all hot and bothered the way it did in Game 2.

“I think everybody who knows and who has followed our team noticed that,” coach Claude Julien said. “I think it was more — we seemed more in control, we seemed to be putting pucks in the right areas, we seemed to be in sync, and I thought we were focused for the whole 60 minutes. It was a great effort on our part, and as I said earlier, there’s a lot tougher times coming and we’ve got to be ready for the next one.”

What truly mattered was that the Bruins locked down, not allowing those breakaways that gave the Canadiens all that success on their home ice in Game 3. That Tuukka Rask returned to his Vezina form, stopping David Desharnais the only time the CH got away. The only goals Rask has allowed in the last seven periods have come on a power-play tip and a 6-on-4 P.K. Subban blast. Rask has stopped 62 of the last 64 shots he’s faced.

Milan Lucic got in on the forecheck, smashing Alexei Emelin, a sight that has surprisingly been rare in this series. Tomas Plekanec iced the puck when big Carl Soderberg came rumbling towards him; Soderberg turned the offensive-zone draw into the opening goal.

These are the plays written in Black-and-Gold ink on Peter Chiarelli's notepads, highlighted on Julien's dry erase board. If they weren’t hitting all cylinders, Game 5 was an assimilation of what they'd done when they were at their post-Olympic best.

“We did everything we wanted to,” said Rask. “A good start, kept pushing, kept pushing, got the power-play goal and never looked back.”

Yet for these Bruins and these Habs, there are no guarantees. No game in this series has been like the one before it, and this is the first time one team has won consecutive games. Montreal will make adjustments in Game 6, get last change, perhaps find a way to free up Max Pacioretty from the clutches of Zdeno Chara. Their most important move might be getting lug Douglas Murray off the ice.

The Bruins traditionally have problems closing out teams, and hasn't this series always had seven games written all over it?

So we head to Montreal, and the Habs try to stay alive in the loudest building in the arena. The Bruins have made their statement; now the Canadiens have to make theirs and bring it all down to a Game 7.

Make sure your seatbelt is fastened and your tray tables are in their upright and locked positions.